IMPACT OF THE RESEARCH NURSE ON PATIENT RECRUITMENT FOR THE STUDY PERTAIN PET RADIOTHERAPY INTERNATIONAL

Introduction: The PERTAIN study is a multicenter, international study, coordinated by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), still in progress. The primary objective of the study was to assess the impact on 2-year survival of patients with stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) using 18F-FDG PET-CT in radiotherapy planning. Each participating institution should include at least 50 patients submitted to concomitant radiochemotherapy, 25 recruited retrospectively and 25, prospectively over 2 years (later extended to 3 years). From 2008 to 2013, 42 patients were included in the retrospective phase: 23 treated with concomitant radiochemotherapy and 19 with neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by radiotherapy (allowed in this phase). Recruitment for the prospective phase, which should include only concurrent radiochemotherapy candidates, began in February 2016 and was completed in December 2018. In October 2017, a research nurse was assigned to collaborate with the studies of the Institution‘s Radiotherapy Service. Objective: To evaluate the impact of the research nurse on the recruitment rate for the prospective phase of the PERTAIN study. Methodology: The annual recruitment rate of the patients was recorded. This rate was evaluated before and after the research nurse‘s participation in the study. Through the analysis of patients schedules, the nurse began to actively search patients, control, collect and periodically record patient data. Results: In 2016, 6 patients were recruited and in 2017, only 4. After the nurse‘s intervention, in 2018, 15 patients were recruited, completing the desired number of 25. Therefore, in one year, there was a relative increase of 50% in the recruitment rate in relation to the sum of the previous 2 years. Comparing year by year, in the third year there was an increase of 120% comparing with the first year and almost four times (375%) comparing with the second year. Conclusion: The collaboration of the research nurse was fundamental for the selection and recruitment of patients, avoiding losses of eligible cases and allowing the institution to reach the desired goal on time.